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Two Ultralighters Remember the World Trade Center Towers

Attack on America

Ben Cole took this photo of Manhattan Island, New York
as he flew his single-seat Stingray up the Hudson River in late
July, 2000. The twin World Trade Center Towers that once dominated
the Manhattan skyline are now but a memory.

Ultralight Flying! magazine joins with America and the rest
of the world in expressing great sorrow and outrage at the September
11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. The
attacks completely destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade
Center, and did incredible damage to the Pentagon. The loss of
life is incomprehensible.

September 11, 2001 was the day terrorists flew two hijacked
passenger-carrying jets into the twin towers of New York City's
World Trade Center, and a third was crashed into the Pentagon
in Washington, D.C. A fourth hijacked jet crashed in western Pennsylvania,
evidently short of its undetermined target. It's a date Americans
will always remember.

These outrageous acts of terrorism shut down the national airspace
system (NAS) in America for the first time since World War II.
Most commercial operations have resumed. Most VFR operations,
including ultralight flight and ultralight training, have resumed
(see www.usua.org for the most current information).

While the aftermath of these events dominate the news, Ultralight
Flying! magazine remembers the grandeur of the World Trade
Center's towers and the people who occupied them through the eyes
of two ultralight pilots who had the privilege of flying their
ultralights by these American symbols of power and freedom.

In June '88 Roland Alexander flew his amphibious ultralight
Buccaneer from Florida up the East Coast to Maine. One of the
excursions he made en route was down the Hudson River in the special
VFR corridor created for small aircraft operations.

"When I was planning my flight up to Maine, I thought
I'd just skirt the Statue of Liberty and continue flying up the
Eastern Seaboard," says Alexander. "A friend of mine,
who is from the New York City area said, 'You've got to fly up
by the Hudson River by the towers of the World Trade Center. It's
a sight you'll never forget.'

"And he was right. When I reached New York City, I flew
around the Statue of Liberty then headed north up the Hudson River
for about 10 miles before turning around and heading back. The
WTC towers were huge, perfect square pillars and I was so close
to them.

"It's hard to imagine those magnificent towers are now
gone."

For pilot Ben Cole, who spent July and September in '00 flying
his single-seat amphibious Stingray through 49 states, the privilege
of flying up the Hudson River will always be remembered.

"I actually flew closer to the World Trade Center towers
than the Statue of Liberty," Cole recalls. "This was
the procedure. I left New Jersey, you had to be over 500 feet
and under 800 feet, and you had to be on the right side of the
Hudson River if you were going north. You don't even have to talk
to the controllers. You have to have a transponder and squawk
1200 and you have to announce your progress. 'This is 249 Bravo
Charlie crossing the Verrazano Narrows Bridge at 600 feet. This
is 249 Bravo Charlie passing Governors Island at 700 feet.' And
you'll hear other people, mostly police helicopters, sightseers
or news helicopters announcing, 'This is police chopper so-and-so
abeam the Lady,' (that's the expression they used, meaning they
were flying by the Statue of Liberty)."

Once Cole skirted the Statue of Liberty, he flew up the Hudson
River.

"The World Trade Center towers dominated the skyline on
that part of the Hudson River," says Cole. "They were
giant glistening towers that were absolutely beautiful. They were
so tall, the wind currents through there created a good bit of
turbulence.

"They were perfectly square - so simple yet so dominate,
so inspiring. They were just a different dimension as far as the
other buildings go. Everything else around there - the Empire
State Building, the Chrysler Building - were all the more traditional
architecture, but these were just so distinctive. They were like
the pinnacle of the architecture in New York City. They were close
to the water and it just didn't seem like the ground could support
them, they were so tall and massive.

"When I flew by the towers, I was probably flying at 700
feet and they were towering above me another 400 feet. I remember
looking over at them and thinking, How many people are watching
this little airplane go up the Hudson River. I wonder what they're
thinking.

"The towers just stood there like silent sentinels. They
were all-glass wonders, highly reflective."

The act of crashing two jetliners into those towers "is
a watershed moment in American history," Cole says. "I
haven't broken down and cried since I was a kid, and when I saw
those buildings come down, I teared up. I couldn't stand it. I
was watching TV, the planes had hit, the commentator was talking
about something else and this building just collapses. And I'm
thinking, Thousands of people just died.

"I was stunned. It just seemed incomprehensible."

No doubt, along with many other repercussions, these terroristic
acts have affected the way we aviate in America, both commercially
and recreationally. The future will show just how much American
aviation has been and will be affected.

Electrical System Safety

There are ultralights being flown that do not have an electrical
system with a battery which allows you to have a starter, anticollision
lights, radio and all the other good things that system provides.
I have noticed a significant difference between the electrical
system used in automobiles as compared to boats and airplanes.
Automobiles have no master switch. No. The ignition switch is
not a master switch. All airplanes and some boats with inboard
engines generally have a master switch.

What is the master switch, you ask? The master switch is the
first switch on the checklist for starting. It "turns on"
the battery and all the power for the electrical systems except
ignition, which is powered by the magneto. The master switch actuates
a solenoid, which has large contacts capable of handling the current
needed by all the electrical systems and the very high current
required by the starter. In short, it connects and disconnects
the battery to the airplane.

Automobiles don't have such a thing and seldom need to. Aircraft
need them because there are times when your safety will depend
upon it. I will cite some examples I have been a part of. A Cessna
150 was returning from a cross-country flight when something happened
to the power system. It was evening and the pilot (grandson of
the plane's owner) turned on the landing lights, which went on
momentarily and then went out. A short-circuit condition was suspected.
He decided not to turn on the radio but flew the pattern and made
sure it was safe for him to land. Fortunately it was an uncontrolled
airfield without much traffic at that hour. After landing he found
that the landing lights were blackened from being burned out and
the fuse was blown.

The next day I was called by the A&P mechanic to find out
what happened. I suspected that the voltage regulator had failed,
so we started the engine and checked the voltage of the generator
at the battery terminals, which showed 16.5 volts. The mechanic
opened the battery box and the battery was found to have been
boiling so there was a clean-up job to do. Usually the voltage
regulator fails by low voltage output, but this was a high-voltage
condition.

"Why didn't the fuse protect the landing lights?"
the mechanic asked. When the landing lights were switched on a
large current flow, resulting from the excessive voltage, surged
through the filaments of the bulbs so quickly the fuse blew as
the bulbs blew. An interesting aside: The tungsten filament of
a bulb, when cold, has a low resistance such that the initial
instantaneous current is from 8 to 10 times the steady state current.
Bearing that in mind you can understand why everything burned
out in a flash.

If the plane had a generator switch and a voltmeter, the pilot
could have identified the problem and turned off the generator.
Then he could have used the radio and landing lights from battery
power. Some larger planes have a generator switch and voltmeter
but the little ones don't. Luckily the only other thing that got
burned out was the directional gyro.

Some months earlier, on this same plane, smoke was detected
in the cabin. Fearing the possibility of fire the master switch
was turned off. Later a short circuit was found. Usually this
condition causes the circuit breaker or fuse to blow, but sometimes
that doesn't happen. At those times it's nice to have another
means of cutting off the electrical power.

Here is one that happened to me. In starting my ultralight
one day the contacts in the starter solenoid welded closed. With
the engine turned off the starter kept on spinning the engine
over. I had wired my machine like an automobile so the only thing
I could do was to break the battery connection. Knowing that the
certified aircraft's master solenoid was rather expensive, I looked
in a catalog for boat supplies and there I found a look-alike
without a metal case but having all the power-handling capability
I needed and more. To give you some idea of what it is capable
of, its label says it is rated to handle 65 amps continuous and
750 amps for 10 seconds.

What is the downside, you ask? Its weight is a little less
than 1 pound. Sure it requires some current to keep it closed
but that is only .66 amps, about the same as a small light bulb.
Not bad for what it can do. Also, you have to remember to put
it on your checklist to be turned off during shutdown because
if you forget, the next time you are going to fly, the battery
will be discharged.

If your radio or other electronic equipment is turned on when
you are turning off the master switch, the diode is necessary
to suppress the high voltage kick that occurs when the actuating
coil is turned off. The idea is to protect semiconductors from
the resulting voltage transient that can puncture them. If you
don't have semiconductor devices in the system, the diode can
be left out.

Arnold C. Anderson has been flying ultralights since 1982,
logging more than 300 hours in his Kasperwing. After 37 years
in the engine and aerospace industry as a mechanical engineer,
designing electro-mechanical equipment and solving reliability
problems in equipment for unmanned deep space missions, Arnold
is now retired. He lives in Bellevue, Washington, where he pursues
his hobbies, including aerial photography and flying RC airplanes
and gliders.

Flying Cross-Country

One intent of the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) in approving ultralight flying was to allow
pilots to enjoy flying at low speeds, and to limit the range to
a distance that is long enough to make the flight interesting
but not so far as to cause a pilot to get lost and in real trouble.
As a result the fuel load on an ultralight was limited to 5 gallons
of gasoline.

Recalling my first long-distance flight through country that
was unfamiliar to me, I prepared early for the flight by using
the principles of pilotage that I had learned so many years ago
in ground school. Because my Kasperwing ultralight is open to
the elements I could not carry a marked chart in my lap; I had
to do the next best thing. On a 3- by 5-inch card I noted my compass
headings and described each checkpoint with the time I would arrive.

Because of a restricted TCA that extended to ground level,
I indicated my turning point and new compass heading, then continued
on with more landmarks. I carried the card in a handy pocket that
I could reach while scrunched in my seat. Just before taking off,
I started my flight timer (the stopwatch feature on my wristwatch).
Then, immediately after exiting the pattern took my first compass
heading.

All of this preparation paid off because later in the flight,
smoke restricted my visibility to about 2 or 3 miles. But I still
hit my checkpoints spot on, made my way to my destination and
returned without anxiety. By the way, I made a separate card for
the return flight.

Pilots who fly certified aircraft that travel at higher speeds
and carry an abundance of fuel may be cavalier about pilotage
and depend on their GPS. In spite of their ground school training
some pilots make no preparation and elect instead to follow highways
and go IFR, which is defined as "I follow roads." That
is okay but I just feel better knowing where I am all of the time
and be prepared to cope with any problem that may be encountered
along the way.

Many times I have flown my Kaserpwing 50 miles on 5 gallons,
which is not an outstanding achievement, except when there is
a headwind. Still, it is a long way from home. A change in the
weather always prays in the back of my mind even though I try
to limit myself to reasonably stable weather conditions.

So what do you do when the weather throws you a curve such
as what happened to a buddy of mine? On his way home he flew through
a front that had no visual indication of its existence. My friend
suddenly found himself dropping about 1,000 feet followed by severe
turbulence. He was about 10 miles from home and pressed on to
land at his private strip, which had a cliff on the approach and
sloped uphill thereafter. At about 500 feet from touchdown he
suddenly dropped and faced immediate disaster with the cliff facing
him. With power and hard up elevator, he got down without damage
but was shaken by the experience and his near crash. What should
he have done? Was there alternative action that he could have
taken?

In questioning older, more experienced pilots, their response
was the same: Yes there were alternatives. The first was to turn
around and go back through the front into stable air and return
to his starting point. If that was judged as being too far, he
could have flown to an alternate field that had a longer and wider
flat runway. Here he would have more forgiving conditions. It
is true that unexpected sink can be experienced at any airport
but with the aid of a radio, one can get valuable information
concerning conditions at a given field.

There seems to be a universal tendency among some pilots and
especially relatively inexperienced pilots, to press on in order
to get home. Why risk injury or damage to your machine? Either
of these takes a long time to fix, not to mention expense. Don't
be too proud to turn back. Wait it out and try again later.

Arnold C. Anderson has been flying ultralights since 1982,
logging more than 300 hours in his Kasperwing. After 37 years
in the engine and aerospace industry as a mechanical engineer,
designing electro-mechanical equipment and solving reliability
problems in equipment for unmanned deep space missions, Arnold
is now retired. He lives in Bellevue, Washington, where he pursues
his hobbies, including aerial photography and flying RC airplanes
and gliders.

Anticollision Lights and Electrical Radio Noise

At some point in flying, the possibility of in-air collision
should become an important consideration. The installation of
strobes or pulsing incandescent lights will most certainly give
you additional security.

In getting serious about this, let's first look at where one
should put strobes. Certified airplanes usually have a rotating
beacon on top of the rudder, but that is not visible from below
so a strobe is often placed on the belly as well. These are turned
on during the day. At dusk the navigation lights are turned on
along with the anticollision lights.

We should install our anticollision lights so at least one
light can be seen from any direction. If strobes are placed in
the outer edge of the wing tips, that goal can be met with only
two lights. Of course the other alternative is to place the lights
above and below as on certified airplanes, but if that doesn't
satisfy your concern you can do both.

Flashing lights of any type have to be a safety benefit. Tests
that I have evaluated indicate that a pulsing quartz halogen light
is more visible in bright daylight than a strobe. The best pulse
appears to be about 1 second on and 1 second off in duration.
Strobes appear to work best at night but we don't have to concern
ourselves about that because ultralights aren't permitted to fly
at night. Ultralight flight is permitted 30 minutes before official
sunrise and 30 minutes after official sunset, provided the ultralight
has anticollision lights.

One problem with these types of lights is the likelihood of
radio frequency interference (RFI) - the result of the pulsed
power that surges to the lamp or strobe. The pulse is in the form
of a square wave incorporating some very high frequency components
that can be picked up by the antenna on your transceiver. You
will be subjected to a pop in your headset each time the light
flashes on. The interference is easily avoided if some simple
precautions are followed.

The circuit to your lights or lamps should not depend upon
the airframe for its ground connection. The lights must be wired
all the way from the pulse source to the lamp or strobe. There
is no need to purchase some super coax cable for this purpose.
Regular well-insulated tinned copper wire will do very well.

The trick in eliminating RFI is to twist the wires together.
The amount of twisting is important. Ideally the wires should
be twisted so there is about one twist per inch. This reduces
the power of noise radiated as RFI by 10,000 at 100 Megahertz,
and that is a lot of shielding. Higher frequency components of
the pulse are attenuated even more. As compared to the noise from
your ignition, it is essentially zero interference.

Now we come to our next subject - ignition noise.

This problem is eliminated on certified aircraft by shielding
the ignition wires with metal braiding, and then grounding the
braid. That may or may not work on your ultralight. I made up
a set of shielded wires for my engine and found I couldn't fire
the spark plugs. My engine is fired by a capacitance discharge
ignition (CDI) system, which produces one pulse with high frequency
components in its wave. The shielding, in conjunction with the
wire insulation and the wire going to the spark plug, formed a
capacitor. The capacitance, though small, shorted out the pulse
to ground. This I found out a good deal later from an electrical
engineer, who was versed in that sort of thing.

I had to find an alternative means of cutting down the fierce
spark noise in my radio. I didn't want to use resistance wire
because it has a way of deteriorating with use. Most resistance
wire uses a nylon string that has been loaded with graphite as
its current conductor. In time the spark current causes the graphite
to sublimate (evaporate away), the resistance goes up and the
engine will start to miss, especially at high power settings.
Not good.

I tried various noise-suppression caps and finally I found
one that would do the job satisfactorily. Of course it was the
most expensive one so it is no wonder. The best cap I was able
to find is a Bosch, part number 356-351-032 marked as having a
1K-ohm impedance. To be sure it doesn't cut out all of the spark
noise but by turning up the squelch on my transceiver, it works
just fine. The only time I hear any spark noise is when I have
an incoming signal, but it is at an acceptable level.

If there is anything better out there I would like to hear
about it.

Arnold C. Anderson has been flying ultralights since
1982, logging more than 300 hours in his Kasperwing. After 37
years in the engine and aerospace industry as a mechanical engineer,
designing electro-mechanical equipment and solving reliability
problems in equipment for unmanned deep space missions, Arnold
is now retired. He lives in Bellevue, Washington, where he pursues
his hobbies, including aerial photography and flying RC airplanes
and gliders.

Engine Additives in Ultralights

It seems that since the very beginnings of development of the
internal combustion engine people have been coming up with fuel
and oil additives designed to make more power or extend the life
of engines. In the early times, it was said that auto racers would
put mothballs in their fuel tanks to get more power. The mothballs
were supposed to dissolve in the fuel and give more punch. Since
that time, other additives have been developed. Some of them were
very effective, such as Tetraethyl lead, which was used up until
recently when it was determined that it was poisoning the earth.
Oil companies were always coming up with an exotic material. One
time it was some mysterious stuff called Platformate, then it
was boron. They all have mostly fallen by the wayside and now
we are getting plain ol' gasoline.

In looking at the shelves of your local auto parts store, you
can find a number of oil and gasoline additives. The oil additives
with which I am familiar either make the engine oil have a higher
viscosity or have some solvent property intended to clean up varnishes
in the engine. When I purchased my first new car many years ago,
the service manager tried to sell me an additive. He said that
after a quart of the additive was added to the oil, they would
run the engine for an hour, then drain all of the oil and drive
the car 100 miles after which it would run perfectly fine.

I had just graduated from college and had studied engine design
in addition to spending considerable time in the engine laboratory.
I wanted to ask the critical question: Did they disassemble the
engine and inspect it for wear or damage? Also, did they prepare
an engineering report describing the test signed by the person
in charge of the test?

I let it pass because whenever I've asked one of these suppliers
of oil additives for an engineering report on tests run in a laboratory
under controlled conditions, the results are disappointing.

The conclusion of all this is, don't deviate from what your
engine manufacturer recommends. There is little doubt in my mind
that in 4-stroke engines the new synthetic oils are superior to
the basic petroleum oils. But my advice still remains, follow
your engine manufacturer's recommendations. When it comes to 2-stroke
oil, I am convinced synthetic oil is the only way to go. I don't
believe any 2-stroke engine manufacturer recommends anything but
synthetic 2-stroke oil. It burns cleaner and provides better lubrication
at high temperatures and does not require a large quantity per
gallon.

Oil in gasoline displaces fuel and burns slowly so it does
not provide significant energy to the piston. Before the development
of synthetic oils, early 2-stroke motorcycle racers would reduce
the amount of oil in the gasoline and the result was more power.
One regional champion told me that he ultimately went to 100:1
in his fuel-oil ratio and would win races. In the process, he
sacrificed the engine but he would win races. The motorcycle manufacturer
sponsored him so the ruined engine was no great loss. He would
also do such things as use only one ring on each piston.

What I'm leading up to is this: Whatever you add to your gasoline
it is very likely going to reduce the amount of power available
to your engine's output. Yes, even alcohol reduces available power.
Alcohol has a lower energy content than gasoline.

The question of fuel stabilizers comes up from time to time.
For boats or power generators that sit for long periods of time
between uses, the manufacturer often recommends a stabilizer.
But your ultralight shouldn't have this problem. Every time I
fly I usually burn more than half of the fuel in the tank so I
am always adding fresh fuel. When winter comes and I quit flying,
I drain the remaining fuel and put it in my old truck that doesn't
require any special consideration. Of course, I do one more thing.
With the fuel line disconnected I run the carburetors dry.

As a final note, if FAA hasn't approved an additive for certified
aircraft, then it probably should not be considered acceptable
for your ultralight.

Arnold C. Anderson has been flying ultralights since 1982,
logging more than 300 hours in his Kasperwing. After 37 years
in the engine and aerospace industry as a mechanical engineer,
designing electro-mechanical equipment and solving reliability
problems in equipment for unmanned deep space missions, Arnold
is now retired. He lives in Bellevue, Washington, where he pursues
his hobbies, including aerial photography and flying RC airplanes
and gliders.

Bellaire SE

This Bellaire SE was first introduced in April '97 and
now reportedly has 220-plus hours of flying time. Co-owned by
Arnold Gilmore and Richard Berstling (who assisted Gilmore in
building the single-seat aircraft), the Bellaire SE is marketed
by Berstling's Bellaire Monoplane Company, which expects to add
2-seat siblings (both side-by-side and tandem seating versions)
to its hangar in the near future.

Bellaire designer Richard Berstling recently flew 13 1/2 hours
from Florida to Wisconsin in his (and co-owner Arnold Gilmore's)
beautifully finished Bellaire SE. Berstling assisted Gilmore in
building the original Bellaire SE, a plans-built aircraft first
introduced in April '97. The plane Berstling flew currently has
a little more than 220 hours on it.

Powered by a 50-hp Rotax 503 dual carb 2-cycle aircraft engine
using a 2.58-to-1 reduction drive, the Bellaire cruises at between
85 and 90 mph. When the Rotax B gearbox is changed to a Rotax
C drive (with a 3-to-1 ratio), cruise increases to 105 mph.

Climb rate is listed at more than 1,000 feet per minute, with
power-on stall speed coming in at 25 mph (power-off stall is 34
indicated), according to Berstling. Standard stick and rudder
controls are used with a center stick and left throttle. When
built from plans, the plane will take about 2,000 hours to complete,
according to the Bellaire Monoplane Company. Component parts are
also offered to cut down on building times. The plans consist
of 12 pages of 24- x 36-inch CAD drawings.

According to Berstling, the plane will soon be available in
a 2-place configuration (both side-by-side and tandem seating
versions). Currently three 2-place craft are under construction
with completion expected in about 6 months' time. These will be
powered by the Rotax 912 series of 4-stroke engines, as well as
the 75-hp Walter Micron 4-cycle engine.